Related

At 11:30 p.m., the city’s Civil Security held an emergency conference call. During that call, the Transport Ministry mentioned the closing of Highway 13, but failed to mention that people were stranded on the highway.

The ministry didn’t participate in a second conference call and it wasn’t before 3:30 a.m. that the fire department was made aware that citizens were in need of rescue.

Coderre intends on addressing the issue at a press conference scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

Premier Philippe Couillard weighed in, calling it an exceptional situation, but added that wasn’t an excuse for the lack of a coordinated response.

“It’s an exceptional situation but with an exceptional situation there should clearly be an exceptional response,” he said. “It’s a major event.”

“The fact that things don’t happen very often doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be better prepared when they do happen… We have to take the lessons from this now and do better — much better — next time around.”

Motorists who were towed were initially issued tickets, but Quebec’s Transport Minister, Laurent Lessard announced Wednesday afternoon that they would be refunded.